Football commentator Spengemann makes it clear: "We have established a sport"

interview

After eleven years, ProSieben will broadcast the Super Bowl for the last time on Sunday night. Commentator Carsten Spengemann has been part of the “ranNFL” team since 2017 and looks back emotionally on this time.

watson: Carsten, how often does it happen that during a three-hour football broadcast you have to go to the bathroom but can’t?

Carsten Spengemann: (laughs) I’m deliberately choosing the subjunctive: You could walk a long way through three security doors and go to the toilet at the other end of the studio complex. Or: You go out the door and see if the moon is still shining.

But even the commercial breaks at half-time are not too long.

That’s the point. Even at half-time, you only have a short amount of time with three to four minutes of commercials. So we often know that the moon shines beautifully over Unterföhring.

You’ve witnessed this since 2017 as a commentator on ranNFL. After eleven years, NFL football will be shown on Pro Sieben for the last time on Sunday. Do you feel some nostalgia?

That will only be a factor afterwards. On the night of the Super Bowl, we’ll do a countdown show from the Audi Dome in Munich and give people a great evening. But of course: It is the end of an era.

When you commented your last game live from Philadelphia two weeks ago, you cried goodbye.

It was a great moment, but also a funny one. I was there with Roman Motzkus, who I used to play against and with whom I did my first show. When you realize in that moment that it really was the last game, emotions run high. It’s normal for tears to flow.

Your beginning was special: after all, people knew you mainly through DSDS and other entertainment formats.

That’s correct. I’ve lived and loved football since I was 16, so asking me to comment was like winning the lottery. At the same time, I also asked myself whether the fans would accept me at all because I come from classic entertainment.

Was it helpful to be able to try out the niche channel Pro Sieben Maxx first, in order to be able to formulate certain things more flippantly?

I think we formulate it just as flippantly as we used to. People simply want to be presented with a sport in the way they might talk about it themselves. Just a bit looser and free snout. This gives us a different approach: You don’t just do it for the viewer, but above all with the viewer.

That went down well. “Ran Football” was awarded the German TV prize for the best sports program in 2019 and 2022. The NFL games on Sundays ran on the main channel ProSieben this season.

We’ve grown with the audience and now football is mainstream. You can now get NFL products at every discount store, you’ll see someone with NFL merch on every street corner. It used to be a fringe sport, but football is now an integral part of German sports culture. That’s a great feeling. The NFL did everything right, Ran did everything right and the fans because they opened up to the sport and gave it a chance.

Sebastian Vollmer also said in the watson interview that it’s no longer football hype, because that would only be something temporary.

(laughs) That’s funny, because that’s exactly what I was talking to him about the other day before a show. I agree with him, because hype is just a bump, but it will eventually go away.

Is that no longer the case in Germany?

We had the football hype three or four years ago, when wooden football-shaped chopping boards were first available in supermarkets. But in the meantime we have firmly established a second sport below football in Germany.

This is probably also made clear by the fact that RTL secured the NFL rights at the beginning of the coming season.

I believe that switching to a new channel can also be a huge opportunity. RTL itself made something so exciting out of a sport in which people compete with skis off a hill that I watched ski jumping at the time. And the broadcaster managed to make Formula 1 big. But: None of these sports has already had such an audience as football now.

What impact do you expect on the German football community?

If I knew that, I’d be the head of sports at the NFL (laughs). It is clear to me that the fans expect that the sport will continue to be presented in this way. But I’m sure that RTL will add a shovel or two. Be it with games in the USA or magazines.

The fans initially criticized and misunderstood.

I don’t like it when you say ‘things are stupid’ right from the start if you haven’t seen or read them. That’s why I think it can be good.

The Super Bowl between the Kansas City Chiefs and Philadelphia Eagles will probably also be good. What kind of game do you expect?

We make history. With Patrick Mahomes and Jalen Hurts we have two black quarterbacks in the Super Bowl for the first time. With Travis and Jason Kelche, two brothers meet in the final for the first time. Both teams have offensives that are in no way inferior to each other. I think we’re going to have a pretty awesome Super Bowl.

With the better ending for which team?

My heart belongs to the Chiefs, but they don’t say “Defense wins Championships” for nothing. We’ve seen what the Eagles’ defense is capable of, so my head says the Eagles.